1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for curing a virus on a mobile communication network, and more particularly, to a method for curing a virus of a mobile terminal in a mobile communication network environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in order to cure a virus of various data including software stored in a memory, a mobile terminal, such as a cellular phone or a personal digital assistant (PDA), downloads antivirus programs from a general information processing device or an information processing device positioned in a mobile communication center (hereinafter, referred to as ‘server’), installs the antivirus programs and checks and cures the virus. Alternatively, the mobile terminal must download and use non-infected data, namely, virus-free data.
FIG. 1 is a structure view illustrating one example of a conventional method for curing a virus on a mobile communication network.
Referring to FIG. 1, a mobile terminal 10 communicates with a server 20 through the mobile communication network, and the server 20 communicates with an external server 30, which stores antivirus programs, through an internet 1 and updates the antivirus programs.
That is, the server 20 includes a virus database for storing the antivirus programs for checking and curing the virus, receives the latest antivirus programs from the external server 30, and updates the database.
The mobile terminal 10 downloads data including necessary software from the server 20. In the download process, the server 20 checks for viruses of the data using the antivirus programs stored in the virus database, and transmits the virus-free data to the mobile terminal 10.
Accordingly, the mobile terminal 10 can download and use the virus free data including the software. New viruses are constantly being generated. Consequently, new antivirus programs are also constantly being generated to counteract the new viruses. Since the antivirus programs of the server 20 are always updated with the latest antivirus programs, the data including the software newly downloaded to the mobile terminal 10 can be protected from the latest viruses.
However, the aforementioned method cannot check for a new virus infection or cure the virus of the data including the software previously downloaded and stored in a memory of the mobile terminal 10.
FIG. 2 is a structure view illustrating another example of a conventional method for curing a virus on a mobile communication network.
A mobile terminal 10′ downloads data including necessary software through an internet 1. In addition, the mobile terminal 10′ directly communicates through the internet 1 with an external server 30′ storing antivirus programs, downloads and installs the antivirus programs, and the mobile terminal itself checks and cures the virus of the data including the software.
Therefore, the mobile terminal 10′ maintains a virus database, downloads the latest antivirus programs, updates the virus database, and checks for a virus in all the data including the software stored in a memory by using the updated virus database. The existing data including the software can be protected from both an existing virus and a latest virus.
However, the above-described method requires a large capacity of storage space on the mobile terminal 10′ in order to maintain the virus database, and also requires a large processing capacity to check the virus by the whole virus database. As a result, this method is only applicable to a mobile terminal having a high performance processing function and a large capacity memory.